Project Oxygen was the code-name given to a bold new plan by Google in early 2009.

Was it a new search algorithm? Or a fancy speech-to-text app? Or some other tech wonder?

None of the above.

It was something much more ambitious: it was a quest to find what makes the perfect manager.

After months of exhaustive data-mining and observations (hey, after all they are Google, analytics is their job!) they came out with a list of 8 Good Behaviors that characterized their best and most effective managers.

Here it is:

I know! Not exactly the dramatic insights you would expect, right?

But being data-generated, this list is gold.

As a whole, it reads as a very Solution Focused approach to management.

It is the ranking of these behaviors that is very interesting.

The key skill to be a successful manager in Google? to Be a Good Coach!

So learning how to become a Coach is important. Very important.

Score one for Coaching.

But we can dig deeper. Take a look at what it means to be a “good coach”:

1 – provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing the negative and the positive
2 – have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to your employee’s strength

Now the question is: how do you do that? It is easier said than done!

I would argue that Solution-Focus is the best way to carry out those desired behaviors.

More specifically:

1 – Solution-Focus’ main tool is feedback; no advice is given.  It is constructive feedback, since in Solution Focus we give only positive feedback. By only making comments on what works and not dwelling on what does not work, Solution-Focused Coaching offers an elegant solution to the problem of balancing positive with negative, avoiding all the pitfalls of negative feedback.
2 – in a recent post, I said coaching is the Art of Conversation: so having regular one-on-ones should be no problem to a manager trained in Solution-Focused Coaching.  Solution-Focused Coaches do not “present” solutions. They do something even better. They are trained to elicit clients’ (in this case employees’) specific solutions, which are naturally and of necessity built on the employees’ unique strengths! Which is perfectly in line with the next key skill listed, empowering your team.

I believe that Solution-Focused Coaching not only meets the behavioral challenge set by Google, but exceeds those requirements.

The “Be a Good Coach” in this list can be read as “Be a Solution-Focused Coach“!

Click >>> here <<< to learn how to become a Solution-Focused Brief Coach with a ICF (International Coach Federation) ACTP (Accredited Coaching Training Program).

Thanks to Coert Visser who originally posted about Google’s Project Oxygen >>> here <<<

Tags: 8 key behaviors to be a good manager, ACTP, Become a Solution Focused Coach, Becoming a successful manager, brief coaching, building on strengths, Google, Manager as Coach, Project Oxygen, research, Solution Focused, Solution Focused Brief Coach training

Photo courtesy of @NiniBaseema http://theformofbeauty.tumblr.com/

More often than not, Solution-Focused Brief Coaching boils down to helping clients getting unstuck.

Bill O’Hanlon’s latest book, Change 101 – A Practical Guide to Creating Change in Life or Therapy offers a very useful overview of change strategies for life, therapy and coaching.

As a change facilitator, I do have my ideas about which change strategies work best.

Having said that, I did find amusing Bill O’Hanlon’s list of 11 strategies for staying stuck, which you can find at the end of his book.

Whenever we feel change is hard, it is very often because we are “trapped” in one or more of these useless behaviors:

1. DON’T LISTEN TO ANYBODY
2. LISTEN TO EVERYBODY
3. ENDLESSLY ANALYZE AND DON’T MAKE ANY CHANGES
4. BLAME OTHERS FOR YOUR ACTIONS OR PROBLEMS
5. BLAME YOURSELF OR PUT YOURSELF DOWN REGULARLY
6. KEEP DOING THE SAME THING THAT DOESN’T WORK
7. KEEP FOCUSING ON THE SAME THINGS WHEN THAT FOCUS DOESN’T HELP
8. KEPP THINKING THE SAME THOUGHTS WHEN THOSE THOUGHTS DO NOT HELP
9. KEEP PUTTING YOURSELF IN THE SAME UNHELPFUL ENVIRONMENT
10. KEEP RELATING TO THE SAME UNHELPFUL PEOPLE
11. PUT MORE IMPORTANCE ON BEING RIGHT THAT ON CHANGING

Got change? :-)

Update: On the “getting unstuck” side of the equation, Bill O’Hanlon also sends out each week a free email with tips about how to create positive change. Just send a blank email to: PossiBill0228-192380@autocontactor.com

Tags: Bill O'Hanlon, books, Change, Nini, Solution Focused, strategies for change, stuck, unstuck

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard – by Chip & Dan Heath

Not all change is difficult.

We change all the time, voluntarily, in many different ways – we get married, we start a family, we take up a new job or a new role, we change ideas…

just think of much you changed in the last 10 years!

Based on this insight, the question is: what are the characteristics of successful change?

Chip and Dan Heath set out on a quest to find what works to make change easier, at any scale – individual, organizational, societal.

And in doing so they dispel 3 big myths about change: that some people are just hard to change, it is in their nature; that people are lazy, and that is why they do not change; that there is a “resistance” to change.

To illustrate their findings, the authors borrow Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor of the Elephant and the Rider: the conscious, analytical part of ourselves is like a rider perched on top of an elephant, the adaptive unconscious.

The rider has the ability to plan, to analyze, to make rational choices – but it also has the tendency to spin its wheels and over-analyze, and it stands no chance guiding the elephant with brute force, at least not in the long run.

The elephant gives us drive and power, but it is easily distracted by short term rewards.

The authors use this simple metaphor as a framework to make sense of some useful strategies for change, based on research and illustrated with vivid, “sticky” stories – these strategies are grouped in 3 sections:  how to “direct the rider”, how to “engage the elephant” and how to “shape the path”.

I am a Solution-Focused practitioner, so I was very happy to see Solution-Focused Brief Therapy featured in this book. It appears, together with Appreciative Inquiry, in the section about Directing the Rider, in the chapter “Find the Bright Spots”.

As the authors themselves point out, an effective approach to change involves all 3 dimensions (rider, elephant, path), and sometimes this distinction is pretty fuzzy.

I believe Solution-Focus interviewing protocols to be a case in point:

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners, ask exception-finding questions, we “find the bright spots” (chapter one)

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners,  ask for concrete, behavioral details about what works, we help clients “script the critical moves” (chapter two)

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners, ask the Miracle Question, we “point [the rider] to the destination” (chapter 3) and we also help the elephant “find the feeling” (chapter 4)

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners, ask “what would be the smallest sign that…” we “shrink the change” (chapter 5)

- and since all the questions in the Solution-Focused therapy or coaching protocols are interactional, i.e. are aimed at focusing the client’s attention on the situation, we do help in “shaping the path“.

The more I practice Solution-Focus, the more I am impressed by how effective it is.

Yet, despite the empirical nature of the work that led to the creation of Solution-focused interviewing protocols and despite the research supporting it,  people have a hard time believing it can work. And that is because of ingrained assumptions about change. The authors did an excellent job in showing that there is a different way to think about change. And for that, I am very grateful to Chip and Dan Heath.

Tags: Change, Chip and Dan Heath, Elephant, Haidt, Rider, Solution Focus, Switch

Problem talk creates problems. Solution talk creates solutions. – Steve de Shazer (1940-2005)

This being the Holiday Season, I would like to share with you a great gift that Anthony M. Grant and Sean A. O’Connor gave to the Solution-Focused Coaching community this year: a pilot study of “the differential effects of problem-focus and solution-focused coaching questions”.

From the abstract:

Findings – Both the problem-focused and the solution-focused conditions are effective at enhancing goal approach. However, the solution-focused group experience significantly greater increases in goal approach compared with the problem-focused group. Problem-focused questions reduce negative affect and increase self-efficacy but do not increase understanding of the nature of the problem or enhance positive affect. The solution-focused approach increases positive affect, decreases negative affect, increases self-efficacy as well as increasing participants’ insight and understanding of the nature of the problem.

And from the Summary:

Problem-focused questions reduced negative affect and increased self-efficacy. However, the solution-focused questions were overall more effective, providing the same benefits as the problem-focused condition while also increasing positive affect and participants’ understanding of the nature of the problem. Overall it seems that while both problem-focused and solution-focused questions are effective, generally, solution-focused coaching questions are more effective than problem-focused questions. [my emphasis]

Thank you Anthony and Shean!!

The differential effects of solution-focused and problem-focused coaching questions: a pilot study with implications for practice by Anthony M. Grant and Sean A. O’Connor, in: “Industrial and Commercial Training”, vol. 42, No.2, 2010, pp.102-111.

Tags: Anthony Grant, coaching questions, differential effects of, evidence, Psychology, research, Sean O'Connor, solution-focused questions are better, solution-focused vs. problem focused, University of Sidney

“People are hard if not impossible to change. Relationships are almost as hard to change. Conversations, on the other hand, are relatively easy to change, especially if one is aware of the roles each participant is taking and is skillful at inviting changes in those roles” – Phillip B. Ziegler

In a short paper which appears in Doing Something Different: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Practices (Thorana S. Nelson, ed), Phillip B. Ziegler contributes a simple yet  key distinction that might be very useful to Solution-Focused practitioners.

Traditionally, SF practitioners are taught that clients can be in a visitor, complainant or customer relationship vis-a-vis therapy/ coaching.

Someone who is in a visitor relationship might be a mandated client, somebody who shows up because someone else (the justice system, the spouse, family or, in coaching, management) told him or her to.

Clients who are in a complainant relationship with the SF practitioner are not yet ready to work towards a solution, they first need to voice their concerns and they need to feel validated.

Clients who are in a customer relationship are ready and willing to work towards their goals and to take responsibility for it.

During SF training, a great deal of emphasis is given to the fact that these terms are to be used to characterize the relationship, and not the client – we want to avoid to label the client.

However, as the author of the paper points out: “a visitor is someone who is visiting, a complainant is a person who is complaining and a customer is a ready buyer” - in natural language those terms refer to people, not to relationship.

In a simple yet brilliant move Ziegler suggests to introduce the other term of the relationship, i.e. the SF practitioner, in those formulations.

Therefore, we have:

“visitor/host”

“complainant/sympathizer”

“customer/consultant”

This way:

- the focus is clearly on the relationship, and any temptation to label the client is warded off

- the interactional nature of SF, which is its essence, is properly re-established; and it makes you wonder that a discipline that places so much emphasis on language and its nuances did not come up with something like this before…

- roles are implicitly suggested for the SF practitioner: to be a host when the person approaches as a visitor, to sympathize when the client needs to be heard and to help clients find their own way forward  when they are ready. An effective partnership is set for every possible scenario.

- the name of the game is recognizing which kind of conversation is taking place and therefore in which role the SF practitioner can best be useful to the client.

As Ziegler points out: “being able to recognize what kind of conversation is occurring is extremely helpful; knowing also how to invite, respectfully decline, and offer counter-invitations are essential skills”.

“Visitor”, “Complainant”, “Customer” Revisited by Phillip B. Ziegler in Doing Something Different: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Practices, Thorana S. Nelson ed., Routledge, New York, 2010.

Tags: Brief-Therapy Practices, complainant, customer, Doing Something Different, Phillip B. Ziegler, roles for practitionersrac, Thorana S. Nelson, visitor

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author of “The Little Prince”, once wrote: Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

According to that definition, this little book is perfection.

In 100-pages Peter Szabó, Daniel Meier and Kirsten Dierolf manage to distill the essence of Solution-Focused Brief Coaching.

The beginner coach will find in the book a useful framework for leading a successful coaching conversation:

- Reaching a Coaching Agreement

- Discovering a Preferred Future

- Finding Resources and Precursors of Solutions

- Defining Progress Clues

- Coming to a Session Conclusion

- Follow-up Sessions

The experienced coach will discover in the book the fascinating simplicity of the Solution-Focused approach, with a clear illustration of its key assumptions, jargon-free:

- Solution-Building is a Fast Track to Problem Solving

- Clients Already have Experience with the Solution

- When in Doubt, Trust the Client

- Not Knowing is Useful

together with some case studies that bring home the essence of Solution-Focused Coaching.

Do not be led astray by the simplicity of the book – it is built on years of coaching experience by the authors.

There is a difference between 100 pages that are all the authors can say on a topic, and 100 pages that are the essence of the 1,000 pages the authors could write on a subject. Clearly “Coaching Plain & Simple” belongs to the latter category. A small little gem.

Tags: Coaching Plain & Simple, Daniel Meier, essentials, handbook, Kirsten Dierolf, Peter Szabo, simplicity, Solution-Focused Brief Coaching